Kanye West has appeared to mock those who criticised his antisemitic comments as he returned to Twitter over the weekend.
In October, West’s Twitter account was suspended after he shared a number of antisemitic posts and claimed that he was going to go “death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE”.
He was reinstated on the app a few weeks later following Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, but tweeted on 4 November that he was “not talking to nooobody for a month”, during which he would be abstaining from alcohol, sex and pornography.
However, on Sunday (20 November), West posted to Twitter as he tested to see if his account was working again.
“Testing Testing Seeing if my Twitter is unblocked,’ he tweeted.
Later that evening, he tweeted the words: “Shalom : )” in apparent reference to the controversy.
In Hebrew, the word is often used as a greeting, but can also mean peace.
West’s recent bout of controversy began when the rapper – who has legally changed his name to Ye – began sharing antisemitic conspiracy theories on Instagram.
He was criticised by many of his music industry peers, including Lizzo and John Legend, with Legend tweeting: “Weird how all these ‘free, independent thinkers’ always land at the same old anti blackness and antisemitism.”
His ex-wife Kim Kardashian also released a statement condemning “hate speech” against the Jewish community, although she never explicitly mentioned West.
West stood by his comments, claiming that he “doesn’t believe” in the term antisemitism and continuing to share antisemitic dog whistles in interviews.
He was dropped from brand partnerships with Balenciaga and, after a reported white supremacist group showed support for West’s comments by hanging a banner over a busy Los Angeles motorway, Adidas followed suit.
West had previously bragged that he could maintain his partnership with the sportswear brand, no matter what he said, claiming: “The thing about it being Adidas is I can literally say antisemitic s*** and they cannot drop me.”
